Peruvian Llamas

It's almost the end of the school year...and we could use some humor in the halls!

 I found this hilarious project on Pinterest and you can check it out on this Blog. 

We started by checking out Peru on Google Earth.  We learned about their flag, Machu Picchu, the Andes, and llamas!

We started by creating the background using oil pastels and watercolors. We looked at different patterns and colors that they use in the traditional textiles.

Next we watched a few clips about Llamas and looked at the different features (colors, teeth, hair, necks, etc.)

On a separate sheet of paper we drew our fun llamas in pencil and then added color with chalk and erasers.  Chalk was blended to add shades and shadows. We added texture lines and used the erasers to add our highlights.

Overall, I think this project was a huge hit at school! The kids and staff have been getting a kick out of these in the hallway when they walk past our goofy llamas. It was perfect for this time of year.

Cardboard Masks

What to do at the end of the year? This is always a tough one.  The kids are burnt out and keeping them interested can be a bit of a challenge.  It's also a good time to use the donated materials that have been taking up space in my room.  So this year I decided to make wild masks with my 3rd graders.  I really liked the end product, and so did the kids.  

We only used recycled materials to construct our masks.  

Materials:

Cardboard

Rope

Egg Cartons

Bubble wrap

Fabric

Paint

Liquid Glue

Oil Pastels

The kids came up with 3 different design sketches.  We talked about leaving room for the eye holes and a place for their nose.  They picked their favorite design and drew it onto their cardboard.  We talked about making these really large and keeping it simple.

The hardest part was cutting out the main design.  This is where my xacto knife and I came to the rescue. I definitely gained some arm muscles cutting some of these out. 

They had a great time adding all the materials to their masks. It was interesting to see the students get really interested in textures, height, layers, space, color, etc.  

Overall, I think it was a fun way to end the year.  I definitely enjoyed seeing their proud grins underneath their wild masks. 

Monet Waterlilies

Claude Monet-Waterlilies

I decided to try a Monet project with my 3rd graders this year.  I always worried that a Monet project would look like a huge mess..... 

But I finally decided to take the risk and give it a try.  

I've been continuing with my mantra this year "embrace the mess"!  I wanted something fun, messy, and multi-dimensional.

We started by talking all about Monet.  We talked about France, his gardens, and how he was an Impressionist painter.  The kids were really interested in our discussion about light. How light changes at different times of the day, month, and year.

Finger painting!!! That's right, I really wanted to make a mess.  The first day we painted the background with our fingers.  Each table had a tray with dark blue, green, teal, and purple.  We started with green first.  I showed them how to paint different areas and leave other areas white. We wanted to make it look like the water was moving. After that we continued to fill up the paper adding colors and blending them together.  I made sure to tell them to use two or three fingers when finger painting, not their entire hand or arm.  After the background was painted we added blotches of yellow with white in the center.  

We were all a hot mess after painting the background.  I had buckets of water in the sink for kids to wash in.

The second day we added our lily pads and flowers.  We talked about how our eyes like odd numbers better than even numbers.  We cut out different shapes for our lily pads.  The kids were big fans of the pac-man shape lily pad.  After that we used oil pastels to add veins.  

Finally, it was time to add flowers.  The kids loved this part too.  We used pink and yellow tissue paper for our colors.  I showed them how to use the tissue paper on the back of the pencil and stick it down.  They could cut the edges to add texture.

Once they finished their papers I had them create a group project.  They laid their papers so they were all touching.  They could put them in any direction they wanted to.  We sat around their papers and pretended we were in Monet's garden looking at a pond of water lilies.  They talked about what they liked,what they would have done differently, where they thought the light was hitting our pond, where they saw movement. It was a great discussion and way to end our project.  It was hard to pull them away from their pond at the end of class.  The kids and I both loved how this project could be enjoyed as individual art or put together to become one large piece.